Do you want to seamlessly offload WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront? Then this blog is for you.
CloudFront is Amazon’s powerful content delivery network. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with your WordPress website to offload your media files, you can enhance the speed, reliability, and scalability of delivering media content to your audience.
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned WordPress user, this blog will help you explore the WordPress media offloading process to the Amazon CloudFront platform.
So, keep reading and follow the steps shown in this blog to effectively offload WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront.
Amazon CloudFront: What You Need to Know
Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN). It is offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It helps deliver content, including webpages, videos, images, and other static and dynamic content to users with high transfer speeds.
When a user requests content, CloudFront delivers it from the nearest edge location. This process reduces the physical distance that the data must travel.
CloudFront ensures fast content delivery to users worldwide which is beneficial for websites with a worldwide audience. It is a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.
7 Benefits of Offloading Your WordPress Media Files and Serving Them from Amazon CloudFront
Integrating Amazon CloudFront with WordPress sites to offload media content offers several benefits. Let’s discuss about the importance of taking your media files from WordPress to Amazon CloudFront.
- It helps to improve website performance and speed. CloudFront caches static content (such as images, stylesheets, and JavaScript files) at edge locations which reduces the latency.
- Offloading files in CloudFront reduces the load on your WordPress server. As a result, it helps in lowering your server hosting costs.
- CloudFront enables faster content delivery to users worldwide. Because it works to improve the user experience for international visitors.
- By preventing DDoS attacks and reducing them with its distributed network and web application firewall, CloudFront integration can improve security.
- By providing faster page load times and a better user experience, CloudFront integration lowers the bounce rate and increases the conversion rate.
- It helps build trust with visitors by ensuring their data remains confidential.
- It enhances the user experience and helps you effectively manage your website’s resources.
How to Integrate Amazon CloudFront to Offload WP Media Files Easily (Step-by-step)
To integrate Amazon CloudFront with WordPress sites to offload media files, you can use the Next3 Offload plugin. It supports you to offload your media files to Amazon CloudFront Cloud Storage without any hassle.
Using Next3 Offload you can also connect your WordPress site with Wasabi, Bunny CDN, DigitalOcean, Amazon S3, and S3-compatible Object Storages (Cloudflare R2, MiniO, IDrive e2, StackPath, and more)
To integrate Amazon CloudFront Cloud Storage with your WordPress website, you must take the actions listed below.
Step #1: Install And Activate Next3 Offload
To integrate your WordPress media files with Amazon CloudFront, first, you need to get Next3 Offload from its official page. Then install and activate it on your WordPress website.
First, you need to log in to your WordPress admin dashboard. Then, you need to go to the Plugins section.

Now you can click on the Add New Plugin button.

You need to navigate to the Upload Plugin option.

At this point, you have to click on the Choose File option. Now Upload the Next3 Offload plugin here.

You need to click on the Install Now button (Here is the complete installation process).

Then, you can activate the plugin.

Now, to completely access the plugin, you need to activate the license. Insert your collected license key in the field.
After that, click on the Activate License button.

After following the whole process, you can access the Next3 Offload dashboard and use all the features of this plugin.
Step #2: Sign Up for AWS
If you haven’t already, sign up for an AWS account at https://aws.amazon.com/ and navigate to the AWS Management Console.

After logging in to the AWS console you need to complete the given steps to integrate your WordPress website with Amazon S3.
- You have to create an IAM user.
- Then set up Bucket public permission to disable public access.
- Collect and save Access key ID and Secret Access Key.
These are the main tasks that you need to complete first. To have a more clear idea you can follow this blog that contains the Amazon S3 integration process briefly.
Step #3: Create an Amazon CloudFront Distribution
Log into the AWS console and you need to go to the “Distributions” section of the AWS Console’s CloudFront page. Now you have to create a CloudFront Distribution.

To create a CloudFront distribution, you need to insert the Origin Domain Name. This name will specify the origin server where your WordPress site is hosted (e.g., yoursite.com). Here you also have to check the box for Origin Access and enter the Origin path.

Then setup the Viewer Protocol Policy section. Here you need to select the SSL certificate and Supported HTTP version for better security.

Configure all distribution settings and create other settings as per your requirements to complete the distribution creation process.

You can get help from our documentation to create the distribution.
Step #4: Choose a Provider
To connect with Amazon S3, first of all, select a provider. Here you need to choose the provider Amazon S3 to integrate with the WordPress site.

At this stage, you need to insert the Access Key and Secret Key. Now, you have to insert the credentials that you have collected when setting up the Amazon Web Services (AWS) account.
Step #5: Insert Credentials (Access Key & Secret Key)
From your collected credentials, enter the Access key ID and Secret Access Key. After copying the keys go to your WordPress admin panel and enter the required Keys into the related fields. Then click on Next.

For further help, you can check our documentation section.
After inserting the credentials, Go for the following steps.
Step #6: Connect with Bucket
Now you need to select a bucket or create a new bucket that Next3 Offload Media should use to begin offloading uploaded media files to Amazon S3.

The “Create New Bucket” link will take you to a form where you can enter the bucket’s name and region if you haven’t already done it.

You can also “Browse Existing Buckets” if you haven’t restricted your IAM User’s access to list buckets.

Step #7: Setup Storage Settings
It is required to configure all of the basic functions on Storage Settings after integrating Amazon CloudFront with WordPress.
To change the default storage settings, navigate to the WordPress Admin Dashboard and choose the Next3 Offload option.

You need to select Storage Settings from the Next3 Offload control panel,

Then you have to enable Offload media and Copy to local server options using the toggle button.

You may also enable the Setup Path and File Management options after swiping down a little.
Add prefix, year, and month to the bucket path, add object version, rename files, offload format to the cloud, and so on are a few examples.

Step #8: Setup CloudFront from Delivery Settings
Now it’s time to select a provider to deliver your offloaded files.
Click on the Delivery Settings Tab.
Now, you need to select a delivery provider. As you are integrating Amazon CloudFront, you need to select Amazon CloudFront as a delivery provider.

You can check the preview URL.

After enabling the basic functions, hit the Save Settings button.

Step #9: Offload Your Media Files to The CloudFront
At the final stage, you can set up the Offload Settings.
You can now offload your existing media files and individually offload the existing media files. To complete the offloading process just click on the Offload Now button to complete the offloading process.

You can also access the features to restore offloaded files to local storage and clean up offloaded files from local storage.

Here you can both offload existing CSS and JS files to the Cloud effortlessly.

You may now enjoy enhanced security, dependability, and performance from your WordPress website that is linked with CloudFront. To improve the performance of your website even more, be sure to often check its security and performance settings using the CloudFront dashboard.
Final Words
Integrating S3 cloud storage and delivering media content from CloudFront with WordPress offers a huge benefit. It works on enhancing website performance and reducing storage expenses to ensure data reliability. We hope that following the steps above will help you offload your WordPress media files to Amazon CloudFront.
With user-friendly plugins like Next3 Offload, you can organize and transfer media files effortlessly. By following these steps, you can create a faster, more optimized website ultimately attracting and engaging a larger audience.
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